Saudi Arabia, RIM Reportedly Agree on BlackBerry Use, U.S. Says

The Persian Gulf state’s three mobile-phone operators have been testing a system that can monitor user data on BlackBerry devices to avert a scheduled midnight cutoff of the messaging service. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s government and
Research In Motion Ltd. have reportedly reached an agreement on
the use of the company’s BlackBerry instant messaging service in
the kingdom, a U.S. spokesman said.

“There are reports of an agreement between RIM and Saudi
Arabia,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told
reporters in Washington yesterday. He said department officials
will meet with company officials later in the day. “We’ll ask
if it’s true, for particulars on how it was reached. We’ll see
if we can’t be of assistance.”

The Persian Gulf state’s three mobile-phone operators have
been testing a system that can monitor user data on BlackBerry
devices to avert a scheduled midnight cutoff of the messaging
service. Saudi Arabia has said it wants to monitor BlackBerry
communications to prevent terrorism and illegal activities.

The Saudi situation is one of a growing number of countries
in which Canada’s RIM faces scrutiny over BlackBerry e-mail and
messaging. The United Arab Emirates, India and Indonesia have
also expressed concern that such mobile communications could be
used to violate laws or national mores.

RIM rose 3.5 percent to close at $55.31 in Nasdaq Stock
Market trading yesterday. The stock has dropped 18 percent this
year.

Saudi Arabia had ordered its operators to turn the
BlackBerry instant messaging service off on Aug. 6 and then
extended the deadline until midnight yesterday. The service has
mostly remained on, users said.

Three Options

Negotiators have been weighing three alternatives for
monitoring BlackBerry communications, Al Arabiya television
reported yesterday, citing people at wireless operators it
didn’t identify.

The first option is that RIM agrees to give the kingdom
special servers that make users’ data available to Saudi
authorities, the Dubai-based channel said. The second choice is
that the Canadian company grants Saudi telecommunications
regulators “keys” to log into RIM’s main encrypted servers so
that they can monitor data of Saudi phone-company subscribers.
The third alternative is that the regulator resorts to third-party companies to decipher BlackBerry messaging data.

Marisa Conway, a spokeswoman for Waterloo, Ontario-based
RIM, declined to comment on the State Department remarks. Her
colleague Tenille Kennedy earlier declined to comment on the
press reports.

Waiting For Instruction

RIM said Aug. 4 it can’t meet requests for the codes to
some users’ communications. The BlackBerry corporate service was
designed to prevent RIM, or anyone else, from reading encrypted
information and any claims that RIM provided “something unique
to the government of one country” are unfounded, it said.

Etihad Etisalat Co., one of the Saudi Arabia’s three
carriers said it’s waiting for instructions from the country’s
regulator on whether to shut off BlackBerry instant messaging.

“The issue is between CITC and RIM,” Abdullah Al Hariri,
a spokesman for Etihad’s Mobily service, said in an e-mail
yesterday, referring to the Communications and Information
Technology Commission. “If CITC says to us stop it we will do
that.”